Raw foodism is a lifestyle promoting the consumption of uncooked, unprocessed, and often organic foods as a large percentage of the diet. Depending on the type of lifestyle and results desired, raw food diets may include a selectıon of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds (including sprouted whole grains), eggs, fish, meat, and unpasteurized dairy products (such as raw milk, cheese and yogurt).A raw foodist is a person who consumes primarily raw food, or all raw food, depending on how strict the diet is. Raw foodists typically believe that the greater the percentage of raw food in the diet, the greater the health benefits. Members of the raw food community claim that raw food encourages weight loss and prevents and/or heals many forms of sickness and many chronic diseases.

In a finding that defies conventional culinary wisdom, researchers in Italy report that cooking vegetables can preserve or even boost their nutritional value in comparison to their raw counterparts, depending on the cooking method used. Their study is scheduled for the Dec. 26 issue of ACS Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

December 2006 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a low-protein, low-calorie diet and exercise lower hormones and growth factors that increase a person’s risk of developing and dying from cancer.

Writing in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy, Waser and co-workers report that consumption of raw milk, whether boiled or not, was associated with a reduction in the occurrence of asthma by 26 per cent, hay fever by 33 per cent, and food allergy by 58 per cent. No effect was observed for eczema.